Barcelona“Between 15 and 20 million.” This will be the cost that Barça will have to pay to be able to play in Montjuïc in the 2023/24 season. Barça’s president, Joan Laporta, and Barcelona’s deputy mayor, Jaume Collboni, presented the agreement on Tuesday for Barça to move “temporarily” to the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium while carrying out the refurbishment of the Camp Nou .
The final cost will be a maximum of 20 million, as advanced by ARA. Money that will basically be used to adapt the facilities and adapt to the regulations of the League and the Champions League. Changing rooms, services and the press room need to be modernized, as well as improved access and internal parking, among other issues.
With the slogan “Hello, Barça!”, The council welcomes the club. For the City Council, it will be a round business, as Barça will assume the total investment in the stadium and will also pay for 64% of the investments planned in Montjuïc. “The City Council will only have to speed up the investments it already had planned,” Collboni explained. These reforms, which cost a total of 7.2 million and went beyond improving the stadium, had been postponed, but will be done soon. Barça will have to pay 4.6 million.
In this way, Barça will play temporarily in Montjuïc, in a stadium that was the home of Espanyol for twelve seasons, until in 2009 it moved to the RCDE Stadium in Cornellà-El Prat. “It is ruled out to come there next season and in the execution plan of the works it is not planned to stay there for another year. The idea is to return to Les Corts in the 24/25 season, where they will be waiting for us.” detailed Laporta. In any case, and as club sources acknowledge, it cannot be ruled out that Barça will have to extend their stay in Montjuïc, even if it is for a few more months, depending on the pace of progress at the Camp Nou: minor work will be done this summer and the cranes will enter in the summer of 2023, unless there is a new postponement.
As long as Barça are in Montjuïc, it will not be possible to accommodate all the subscribers (about 84,000) that the club has. Laporta explained that a “rotating system” will be established “democratically” among members who want to go to the Magic Mountain. “We want everyone to be able to take turns. We will try to get as many Barcelona fans as possible to have access to the stadium,” the president clarified. To facilitate attendance, a “mobility plan” will be drawn up, which will consist of strengthening the funicular service, with shuttle buses from Plaça Espanya, the L9 or Sants station, and enhancing members’ access to supporters clubs buses “, the president concluded.
Laporta says “economic levers” will be activated “in the coming days”
Beyond the move to Montjuïc, Laporta has sent an optimistic message for the economic future of the entity, still pending the closure of this season’s numbers and, above all, to be able to sign top players. These are the famous “levers” authorized last Thursday in the assembly. “We are working to implement the one that refers to television rights and you will hear about it soon. We have been working hard these days and it is about to end. Then, more calmly, in July, we will address the “In principle, we believe that there will be two or three operations to have positive equity, to be able to return the debt in a more reasonable and sustainable way and to make the necessary investments to make the teams more competitive.”
